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Wylan tosses sleepily in bed. Moonlight streams through the window in the bedroom, casting a long sliver of white just over the middle of the blankets. A mutter of gibberish falls from Wylan’s mouth and his arm extends by instinct, searching Jesper’s half of the bed for the warm form of his boyfriend. His hand only finds cold sheets and his body begins to wake up from the unfamiliarity.
Wylan’s hand begins to search for a part of Jesper as he blinks awake—only cold greets him. He sits up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes with the back of his hand and then pushing that hand through his hair. More alert, he realizes that not only is Jesper not where he’s supposed to be, but he hasn’t been there for quite a while.
A clock on the wall, illuminated by a sheet of moonlight, reads three bells in the morning. Too early for Jesper, a chronic oversleeper, to be up. A bolt of uneasiness shoots through Wylan.
“Jes?” His voice is hoarse and thick with sleep, but he only cares about listening intently for Jesper’s good-natured response. Perhaps even a quip about the concern behind Wylan’s voice. But the house remains completely silent. All that echoes through the hallways is the ticking of the clocks, half a beat behind one another.
Wylan pushes his feet from the bed, hitting the floor with a silent thump. He begins to investigate and quickly realizes a few very terrifying things.
One: Jesper’s shoes are gone.
Two: Jesper’s pistols lay on the table beside his bed, pearl handles glowing in the light from the window.
Three: Jesper would have no reason to leave in the middle of the night, especially not without telling Wylan.
Panic begins to set in. When was the last time that Jesper went out without at least one of his prized revolvers strapped to his waist? What’s more, is that the pistols live in a safe across the room. This means that sometime between Jesper waking up and putting his shoes on, he got them out but didn’t take them with him.
Wylan begins to fumble to yank on a pair of shoes and a coat. Deep, thrumming warning bells light up every nerve in Wylan’s body as he trips out the door, hopping on one foot and lacing the shoe on the other. He pauses in the doorway, debating on whether or not to take one of Jesper’s revolvers.
A noise from downstairs breaks Wylan from his indecision. A thump, a crash, and then what sounds like something heavy falling over. A chill passes down Wylan’s spine as his heart thuds to the bottom of his stomach. There’s someone in the house.
The decision to grab a revolver is an easy one and soon Wylan is moving through the hallways. The gun feels foreign and bulky in his hand as if the gun is trying to tell Wylan that it’s not meant for him. And despite the fact that Jesper taught Wylan how to shoot, Wylan can’t help but feel like it’s useless in his possession.
He creeps down the stairs with the practiced sneak of a child who grew up in the house. Every step creates a melody and Wylan knows exactly where to step to dull the noise. He focuses on the way his feet move and not the beating in his heart. On the weight of the revolver in his palm and not the sweat that’s threatening to loosen it from his grip. On what each next step brings and not what may lie for him at the bottom of the steps.
Noise comes from the kitchen and Wylan can hear it around the corner. He takes a deep breath and creeps around silently to be positioned just next to the entrance. He takes the safety off the pistol just like Jesper showed him to do. He checks the chamber -- two bullets. Not ideal, but he can work with it.
Muffled cursing comes from the kitchen followed by another crash. What could someone possibly be searching for in there?
Wylan takes a breath, and then another. With a single fluid movement, he whips around the corner and points the gun at where he assumed the intruder would be.
It’s dark in the kitchen. Much darker than he expected. He can first see a chair tipped on its side, a slice of moonlight illuminating part of the kitchen but casting the person in front of him in a dark shadow. They’re tall and bulky and they don’t seem to notice Wylan yet. Their silhouette is placed in front of the medicine cabinet and the counter below it is riddled with bottles of pills and tinctures. Some of Wylan’s creations, some from the local doctor.
“Can I help you?” Wylan tries to will some of Jesper’s even confidence into his voice but it comes out breathy and rushed. The figure jumps, startled completely before they right themselves against the counter. They don’t appear to be armed or at least aren’t stupid enough to reach for a weapon with a gun trained right on them.
“Tell me why you’re here,” Wylan says, pleased with the new edge to his voice. The figure says nothing, just raises their hands up towards their face.
“Well?” Wylan pushes down the lever on the revolver, boosted by the familiar click of the barrel locking a bullet into place.
“Saints, Wylan!” Jesper’s familiar voice cries something off in the back of it.
“Jesper?” Wylan lets the gun point down towards the floor, his finger disengaging it and replacing the safety. He lets out a relieved sigh, pushing the tension that had been bouncing around his body with it.
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” Jesper says apologetically, something still catching in the back of his voice. “I was just trying not to wake you. Clearly, it didn’t work.” Even if Wylan can’t see his face, he can still hear the lopsided grin that Jesper would be pulling.
“What’s wrong? Why are you searching in the cabinet?” Wylan takes a step towards Jesper, but something is wrong. Jesper’s body language speaks nothing of his normal easy, loose gait. He looks tense.
“I just woke up with a headache and went to grab some of your pain remedies,” Jesper explains, his voice too easy.
“You needed your shoes to search the medicine cabinet?” Wylan asks softly. He can hear the sharp intake of breath from Jesper. Slowly, he moves towards the table where a lamp sits. As his hand begins to twist the knob to release the light, Jesper begins to protest.
“Wait, Wylan, don’t-”
As a bath of warm yellow light covers the room, Wylan can’t stop the gasp that escapes his mouth.
Jesper closes his eyes in embarrassment but it doesn’t hide the injuries that span his face. Dried blood crusts under his nose, blending with the cut, and blood dried to his lip. A cut runs along the bone underneath his eyes, with small runs of dried crimson already forming under the scab. Worst of all, though, is the deep purple bruise that covers his left eye. An impressive blend of purple, red, and blue runs across the eyelid and travels down toward his cheekbone, swollen and painful-looking.
“Jesper, what-” Wylan rushes towards him but Jesper takes a breath and stiffens so Wylan doesn’t close the gap between them.
“Would you believe me if I told you I fell down the stairs?” Jesper laughs weakly before wincing in pain.
“Who did this to you?” Wylan’s voice is deathly still, his eyes intensely fixed on Jesper.
“I-” Jesper begins before a cough wracks his body and he pitches forward. Wylan lunges forward out of instinct, but Jesper’s hand shoots out, and catches himself on the counter.
“Are you okay? Are you injured anywhere else? Do I need to call…” Wylan’s voice trails off as he notices the handprint smear of fresh blood now painting the top of their countertops. “Jesper,” he says, his voice level despite the growing panic traveling up his throat, “let me see your abdomen.”
“If you want me to take off my shirt, darling, all you have to do is ask,” Jesper tries again for the confident grin but another cough wipes it from his face and his hand instinctively clutches his side.
Ice-cold fear runs down the back of Wylan’s spine. Without waiting for an answer, he pushes forward, removing Jesper’s hand from where it sits tightly on his side, just to the side of his stomach. Blood, so dark it’s almost black, stains his white shirt with a knife-sized tear through the fabric to frame it.
“Have you…” Wylan can’t will the words to his tongue. “Have you been stabbed?”
“The stairs were really mad at me today,” comes Jesper’s easy reply. His smile is weak and his eyes look dangerously close to closing. A second later, they roll back in his head and he begins to fall forward towards Wylan, who softens his fall with a string of curses.
“Jesper, you can’t close your eyes,” Wylan says desperately. “I can’t carry you if you pass out. You have to help me here,” There seems to be very little strength left in Jesper’s body but a cough seems to push some life back into it. Jesper lets Wylan sling his arm around Wylan’s shoulders and he stumble-drags his legs towards the table. Wylan rests Jesper against the smooth wood before violently swiping everything off the top of it. Glass and ceramic shatter against the floor but Wylan doesn’t seem to notice as he helps heave Jesper up to lay on the surface.
“If I had known this is what it would take to get you to lay me back on the kitchen table,” Jesper says breathlessly, “I would’ve gotten stabbed way sooner.”
“Don’t talk,” comes Wylan’s desperate command. “Save your energy.” He leaves Jesper’s line of sight for just a moment before returning with a knife and a towel.
“I’m going to have to cut your shirt off,” Wylan says, a touch of sympathy gracing his voice. Jesper gives the smallest of nods. Wylan makes quick work of it, safely and quickly stripping the fabric off and exposing Jesper’s chest. He tries to mask the sob that emerges when he sees what lies underneath but Jesper catches it easily.
“I need to…” Wylan’s voice shakes but his hands are as steady as ever. “I need to hold this here. I need you to hold this to the wound.” He repeats himself, pushing it tightly over the knife wound and pushing Jesper’s hand firmly over it. The contact of their skin soothes Jesper immediately and despite the light, airy feeling in his head, all he wishes is that Wylan would stay there and just hold his hand like this.
“Keep talking to me,” Wylan says, leaving momentarily to root through the same cabinet that Jesper had been searching through just a few minutes ago. “Tell me why you left in the middle of the night to get stabbed.”
“I-” Jesper pauses. Surely, whatever the truth holds couldn’t be worse than getting a literal knife to the gut, right? “I was doing a job for Kaz.” The shuffling from across the room stops for an almost imperceptible second before resuming again with new vigor.
“In the middle of the night? Without telling me?” The pain in Wylan’s voice almost hurts worse than the burning wound in his stomach.
“I didn’t want you to worry,” Jesper’s voice is quiet, ashamed. “You know how you get whenever I’m gone at night.”
“Yes, Jesper, because I worry about you ,” Wylan emphasizes, returning to stand over Jesper and hover over his side. Gently, he removes Jesper’s hand and replaces the towel with a thinner, softer cloth. He pushes hard on one part of the wound and Jesper can’t hide the choked cry that jumps from his throat.
“I’m sorry,” Jesper says. “It’s just that I feel so awful when I see you curled up in that armchair, awake at crazy hours in the night just because you’re waiting for me to get home. And then you’re so exhausted the next day and I feel even worse. I was just trying to spare you the pain and the worry.” The irony of the situation is not lost on him and he catches Wylan’s eye, who apparently feels the same.
“For the record,” Wylan says, positioning another piece of soft fabric against a shallow cut above Jesper’s chest, “It’s not a burden for me to make sure my boyfriend gets home safe. I would rather stay up for a hundred hours in a row than sleep through something like this.” Jesper winces, unrelated to the pain radiating through his bones.
“I know, I just-” he starts.
“I get it,” Wylan says with a sigh. “I just wish you had told me.” He applies a thin bandage over the cut towards Jesper’s chest and then directs his attention back towards the stab wound. In a formal, professional tone, he reports the damage.
“The stab wound isn’t very deep, which is good. It looks like you’ve lost a lot of blood, which isn’t. It also doesn’t look like it’s punctured any major organs or arteries. If we dress this properly and you actually rest for once, you’ll be alright.”
“Wy-” Jesper starts, but doesn’t know what he wants to say. What do you even say? Oh, hey loving and adoring boyfriend who’s currently fixing my very life-threatening mistake, I’m super sorry about lying to you and sneaking out behind your back and then forcing you to play doctor in order to keep me from dying. My bad!
“How come you didn’t take your revolvers?” Wylan asks, pulling the soft fabric away from the wound, wincing, then unwinding a long strip of bandages.
“I wouldn’t have been able to take them in,” Jesper sighs. “Kaz had me pulling intel at the Scarlet Snake and you know their policy on weapons.”
“But you pulled them out of the safe,” Wylan points out.
“I thought about trying to sneak them in, but I realized they’d search me, especially if they realized I was working with Kaz.”
“Did you at least get the information you needed?”
“No. The whole thing was a waste of time.”
“Did you…” Wylan tries to figure out how to formulate the question without sounding accusatory.
“I didn’t gamble,” Jesper sounds proud of himself and Wylan can see a weak smile drift across his face. “I didn’t feel the itch to, either. I think I’m getting better at keeping it down, Wy. The urge, I mean.”
“That’s great, darling,” Wylan gives him a genuine smile before tugging tightly on the bandage and wrapping it around Jesper’s torso clumsily. Jesper tries to shift to make it easier for Wylan to go underneath his back while he’s laying on the table, but Wylan firmly pushes him back down.
“It helps that I have something important waiting for me back home,” Jesper says, his hand reaching and squeezing Wylan’s arm with as much strength as he can muster. Wylan’s hand finds Jesper's and he squeezes it tightly, delivering a kiss to the tops of Jesper’s fingers before he finishes wrapping.
“I don’t know much about healing,” Wylan admits. “But you won’t bleed out.”
“Thank you, my love,” Jesper smiles up at Wylan. Wylan helps him sit up and get to his feet, where they quickly move to the sitting room and set Jesper on the couch.
Upon Jesper’s insistence, Wylan sits and Jesper rests his head in Wylan’s lap. His breathing has become more steady and his face less pale. The rapidly fading moonlight visible through the thick curtains casts a small beacon on Jesper’s bruises, but Wylan’s hands find Jesper’s hair as they often do when Jesper needs comforting.
“Wylan, I-” Jesper’s head still feels fuzzy and the words come out in all one clump. “I just need to tell you, if you want me out, I completely understand that. I betrayed you tonight and I betrayed your trust. If… If you can’t find it within yourself to forgive me or you just need us to take some time apart, I would more than understand that. Obviously, I hope that you’ll still want to live with me, but-”
“Jesper,” Wylan says in a soft whisper. “Are you sure you didn’t bump your head when you got stabbed?” Jesper furrows his brow in confusion.
“Because you’re talking crazy,” Wylan says. “Sure, I’m mad. I’m mad that you left without telling me and I’m mad that you put yourself in a situation where you couldn’t bring anything to protect yourself with. But I’m mad at Kaz for turning you into his errand boy and putting you in this situation. I’m mad at whatever idiots decided to jump you in the alleyway and do this to you. I’m mad at myself for making you think it would be better to sneak around than clue me in. But I’m not mad enough at you to make you leave. I love you, Jesper. More than anything. It’s going to take more than a stab wound to make me want to get rid of you.”
“I can’t-”
“It’s what we’re both here for. To keep each other strong. To keep each other safe. It’s not too much to ask that I help you do that,” Wylan looks down lovingly at him, a hand tracing the side of Jesper’s face.
“I don’t think I’ve told you lately how much I love you.”
“I’ll never get tired of hearing it.”
“I love you, Wylan Hendricks.”
“I love you, Jesper Fahey. And I love you even more with the appropriate number of holes in your body.” Wylan’s joke pulls a sudden, barking laugh from Jesper’s mouth and Wylan can’t help but lean down and press a kiss to Jesper’s lips.
“I’m proud of you,” Wylan says softly.
“Yeah?” Jesper says. “For what, placing my body so that I got stabbed in one of the non-deadliest parts?”
“For not gambling,” Wylan lightly bumps Jesper with his arm. “I know it’s not easy sometimes.”
“I meant what I said earlier,” Jesper says, no hint of shame in his voice. “You give me a reason to fight the urge. That and it’s gotten better as I’ve grown into my powers. But you’re pushing me to want to be better. To actually get better.” An unspoken silence filled with silent words drifts between them and Wylan can feel Jesper’s breathing even out as he begins to drift to sleep.
Smoothing Jesper’s hair out of his face, Wylan smiles down at his boyfriend. Weak, recovering, a little bit pigheaded at times, but alive and in his arms once again.
And even though the sun replaces the moonlight and a mess still lies in the kitchen waiting to be cleaned up, all is right in the world because Jesper is right where he belongs.